![]() It was under them that the Pinkerton Agency became known for working with ruthless robber barons, suppressing workers' strikes with violence." However, following the death of Pinkerton some years later, Moss notes that the company's reputation changed and fewer women joined its ranks once Pinkerton's sons took over: "Once Pinkerton died and they took over the agency, they shut down the women's division. Since Warne had no known surviving family members, Pinkerton arranged for her to buried in his family's plot of land as a tribute to her years of work with the Pinkerton Agency. Warne contracted a "lingering illness" - likely pneumonia - and died in 1868, according to Enss. To this day, the Pinkerton homepage notes: "We Never Sleep." Of course, Lincoln made it safely to his destination, and Warne moved on to another case. The Pinkerton logo - an open eye - is due to Warne's steadfast watch over Lincoln, according to Enss. While Lincoln slept, Warne stayed up all night, watching over the president-elect. Meanwhile, the conspirators believed - falsely - that Lincoln was still on the original train bound for the capital. The Pinkerton Agency dispatched its own train, which Lincoln and Warne boarded. ![]() Warne posed as Lincoln's sister and spirited him out of his hotel in Philadelphia, advising Lincoln to ditch his signature stovepipe hat and stoop down to hide his prominent figure. Through talking to railroad workers in Baltimore, Lawson and Webster discovered that there was a conspiracy brewing to blow up the train that president-elect Lincoln would ride on his way to Washington, D.C., where he would be sworn into office. ![]() On this case, Lawson posed as the wife of a male Pinkerton agent, Tim Webster, who was disguised as a construction worker. Renowned for her beauty and owing to a white-passing complexion, Lawson could disguise herself as both a slave and as the wife of one of the male Pinkerton agents, allowing her the unique ability to spirit secrets out of the South on behalf of the Pinkerton Agency. Lawson's father was white and her mother was Black. According to Enss, Warne worked on the case with a female, biracial detective: Hattie Lawson. ![]() Kate acted her role to perfection and was brave enough to sneak into the house and find where the money was buried, then later use just the right strategy to get the wife to give the money to a supposedly trusted courier," writes Moss in an email.īut Warne really became famous for her work on the 1861 Baltimore plot, which was the conspiracy to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln. "The idea was for her to discover where the money was and to convince the wife when the time was right to hand it over. ![]() When the company hired the Pinkerton Agency, Warne was dispatched as an undercover field agent to befriend the suspect's wife. The case involved a man who used his position with the Adams Express company to embezzle money from his employer. One of the undercover cases that Warne took on in her first few years with the Agency was the Adams Express case, which children's book author and illustrator Marissa Moss explores in her book " Kate Warne, Pinkerton Detective." was somebody who could hold her own in any situation, which made her perfect for a job with Allan Pinkerton," says Chris Enss, a New York Times best selling author who writes books about women of the Old West, including " The Pinks: The First Women Detectives, Operatives, and Spies with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency."Īnd Pinkerton really put Warne to the test. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |